Biden cabinet members talk about jobs plan in visit to Electric Boat

With many people out of work or underemployed due to the pandemic, apprenticeships — long seen as pathways to higher paid, higher skilled jobs — are emerging as key way to bring people back to work in jobs that can support their families.

That was the message of two of President Joe Biden’s cabinet secretaries in their joint visit to Electric Boat’s headquarters in Groton on Tuesday. Both hail from New England states with histories of using apprenticeships to train workers in the manufacturing and industrial sector.

“The reality is that today, in order to get a decent job, you need some degree or credential or skill or trade past high school. That’s a fact of our economy. You saw the folks that got hurt most during the pandemic were those who were in the lower-skill, lower-wage jobs,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, former governor of Rhode Island.

The submarine builder was a prime venue for Raimondo and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, a former union official and mayor of Boston, to deliver that message, as the company — with a plant in Rhode Island — has hired and trained thousands of employees in recent years for highly technical jobs with good wages.

President Biden’s American Jobs Plan proposes a $48 billion investment in workforce development, including creating 1 million to 2 million registered apprenticeship slots, Raimondo said.

The administration also wants to expand job training programs, and target those who are underrepresented, including communities of color and women.

“We’re making sure that we prioritize workers who were shut out in the past, particularly people of color and women. We need to make sure we create these programs for everybody, so everyone can benefit from them,” Walsh said.

He added, using Biden’s campaign slogan, “This is how we build back better.”

The Connecticut Department of Labor’s Office of Apprenticeship Training currently has 6,710 registered apprentices and nearly 1,700 employers that span 50 occupations. Over the past 20 years, 900 apprentices have worked at EB, according to data from the governor’s office.

About 300 apprentices are currently enrolled in EB’s three- to four-year design and manufacturing programs, which combine on-the-job training with classroom learning, in specialties ranging from computer-aided design and 3D modeling to welding.

The apprenticeship programs are for employees already working at the company, who go through a competitive process to apply. About 75 percent of apprentices make it through the program.

One of them is 25-year-old Arnold Chappell, of Waterford, who graduated from the inside machinist apprenticeship program in January. Chappell started working at EB about six years ago, fresh out high school. He worked in assembly for about two years, until 2016, when EB restarted its internal apprenticeship programs.

“It’s been one of the best things I could’ve done,” he said. “I learned every machine in our shop and a bunch of different types of machines that will pretty much give me a good baseline for the rest of my life.”

Joined by Gov. Ned Lamont; Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; and Reps. John Larson, D-1st District; Joe Courtney, D-2nd District; Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District; and EB’s president, Kevin Graney, Walsh and Raimondo toured the company’s Groton shipyard, where four different attack submarines are in varying stages of construction and where a major expansion is underway to make way for construction on a new fleet of ballistic missile submarines.

The new building being constructed will feature more steel than the Eiffel Tower.